“Apple’s A6 processor is the result of years of effort that has its roots in Apple’s efforts to achieve independence from its chip suppliers.,” Dean Takahashi reports for VentureBeat.
“As noted in a post by Anandtech, the evidence is growing that Apple took the added trouble of not only designing its own ARM-based chip; it also created a customized core (the central processing brain inside the chip) for the A6, according to a post by Lynley Gwennap, head of The Lynley Group, a chip market consultancy,” Takahashi reports. “Gwennap believes the A6 has a dual-core design running at 1.2 gigahertz. Gwennap says that Apple has spent $400 million on chip company acquisitions and probably another $100 million on four years of chip development, bringing its total investment to $500 million.”
Takahashi reports, “Gwennap now expects Apple to use the A6 through 2013 and then launch a new CPU design in 2014. That one could be based on the 64-bit ARMv8 instruction set. Gwennap says he believes that Samsung is building the A6 in a 32-nanometer manufacturing process. (In that respect, Apple is not completely independent. It designs the chips, but has to rely on Samsung to make them). ”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
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